Bomb-hoax victim's dad named new rugby boss

Date: January 10 2013

Rupert Guinness

BILL PULVER knew the moment he sat down to be presented as the new chief executive of the Australian Rugby Union that there would be questions about his daughter Madeleine and the collar-bomb hoax incident.

Mr Pulver tried to stop the ARU's announcement of him as John O'Neill's successor being spoiled by focus on the 2011 incident at the family home in Mosman for which the attacker, Paul Douglas Peters, has been jailed for 10 years.

But the questions were many and varied. Did Mr Pulver have concerns about taking on the job because of his public profile from the incident? Was his family worried that his new position would bring the public's attention on them again? Did he suspect people may find his appointment curious, considering he came to it without any experience in sports administration?

To each of those questions and others, Mr Pulver's answer began with a ''No …''. But later, when asked if he expected them, he told Fairfax Media: ''To a degree … Frankly, I think that [collar bomb hoax incident] is a completely separate issue and I want the focus to be on Australian rugby.

''That was an event I couldn't control. This is something I can control … and this is a way more interesting story.''

Mr Pulver, who is the chief executive of a linguistic technology solutions company, Appen Butler Hill, will start his new role on February 1. He has 20 years of experience as a chief executive for companies around the world.

He conceded that he, his wife Belinda, and their four children discussed the ramifications of his appointment before accepting it.

''We spoke as a family about the implications for the role, but the overwhelming factor was that we are going to be engrossed in a game that we all love,'' Mr Pulver said. ''And so there was never any question within our family about whether I would accept this opportunity.''

Mr Pulver, 53, said it was Belinda who convinced him to apply for the job of resurrecting rugby's once strong stature among the football codes.

The former Shore School half-back, whose son Angus played in the same position for the Australian Schoolboys last year, recalled how he and his wife were reading the job brief he received from the ARU's recruitment agency. ''I was reading what they were looking for in an executive, and my wife was reading it over my shoulder and she said, 'That is you','' Mr Pulver said.

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